![]() Two people that could discuss a crime without going off topic.”įans adore “Crime Junkie” podcast hosts Ashley Flowers (left) and Brit Prawat (right). “A narrative-not just people reading facts. “What I felt was missing was a show that could tell a good story,” she says. “I loved it.” But decades later, as a young adult, she was left wanting after listening to podcasts like Serial and its imitators. “From the time I was 9 or 10, I just couldn’t stop,” she says. As a child, she grew up watching reruns of Perry Mason and Columbo with her mom. The true-crime podcast wave also gripped Flowers, 30, who until just a few years ago had run sales at a medical-device company in her hometown, South Bend, but had been fascinated with crime since her youth. Podcasts such as In the Dark and Criminal began to rack up tens of millions of downloads, helping to renew an American love affair with the macabre, which can be traced back to Capote’s In Cold Blood and, long before that, to Poe. True-crime podcasting exploded after the 2014 arrival of the NPR podcast Serial, which reexamined the 1999 murder of a Baltimore high schooler. Any armchair detective could tell you that straightaway. Yet the man who was indicted by a grand jury on 22 felony counts, including the murder of another child, is not the little girl’s father. They also found her sweatshirt buried in his backyard. During an investigation of the man’s home, authorities scoured his computers and internet search history, where they discovered someone had Googled the name of the little girl and “sexy” in one query and a host of disturbing others. He was a convicted sex offender who, in 2017, led authorities to the child’s remains among a pile of discarded tires on the outskirts of Tucson. More than a year ago, a man was charged for the little girl’s murder and faces a trial in 2021. Was it him? The junkies think he’s responsible for his daughter’s disappearance, and Flowers and Prawat egg them on with isn’t-that-suspicious looks and banter that makes the audience erupt in laughter. It’s the victim’s father, who seems more nonchalant than he should. Then comes an unexpected beat: Flowers and Prawat cue up a 911 call. Photos of suspects appear on a screen, and their faces are X’ed out as the mystery progresses. They receive adoring applause.įor the next two hours, Prawat and Flowers-literally armchair detectives tonight-take their listeners into the still-pending case of a 6-year-old girl from Tucson, Arizona, who went missing in 2012. ![]() Now, a little past 8 p.m., more than 2,000 people-a sold-out audience-settle into their seats inside Clowes for a live version of Crime Junkie, where the hosts lead the house through a whodunit from a stage set to look like a living room. In an upcoming venture, the duo is expected to release Red Ball, a podcast miniseries documenting the work of a young Indiana State Police detective taking over the case of the unsolved 1978 Burger Chef murders. ![]() Two years and more than 100 episodes into the project that launched in December 2017, Flowers’s voice has made Crime Junkie a seven-figure franchise that’s been hailed by tastemakers like Rolling Stone and shortlisted by networks for a television project. One of the Junkie junkies near the merch table says, “I think I was supposed to be a detective in real life.” The 43-year-old southside woman wearing a pink Crime Junkie T-shirt works at a nearby college instead, but lives vicariously through her $5-per-month Crime Junkie subscription (packages run up to $20), which she pays via Patreon, a crowdfunding site. Nearby, there’s a merch table hawking $25 T-shirts: “Crime Junkie Podcast Tour,” the front reads on the back, there’s a list of 15 cities, from Phoenix to Austin. Superfans of the Indianapolis-based “Crime Junkie” lined up early to meet the podcast’s hosts and see a live show at Clowes Hall in October. ![]() Britney Spears’s “Oops! … I Did It Again” plays: I’m not that innocent. The hosts, Ashley Flowers and Brit Prawat, pose with fans in front of a branded Crime Junkie backdrop as an assistant hands out Crime Junkie swag bags. Produced in Broad Ripple, the podcast is downloaded 22 million times each month, adored by a growing audience that includes 370,000 Instagram followers. 1 true-crime podcast on iTunes, Crime Junkie. Eager to part with $120 for the good stuff: VIP tickets to the live show of the No. The addicts have arrived at Clowes Hall on the campus of Butler University. That’s what we’re here for, right? A fix? Someone’s about to stalk, kidnap, and kill a little girl. You guys are just like me-you’re true Crime Junkies, and you need to hear stories more than once a week to get your fix.Īctually, those are borrowed from a podcast, someone else’s work. But hearing about it once a week isn’t enough for you. I keep hearing that you love stories of true crime. To begin the story of a podcast, let’s introduce a voice: ![]()
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